The Energon Pub

JazZeke wrote:I don't see parents being too keen to buy their children a toy that looks like a robot geisha.

You really think parents are gonna care about that? They'll probably just ask their kid/s what they want, and when they say "The transformer Windblade figure!", the parents will see a female robot with swords that turns into a jet.

Deathscythetransform wrote:but the name? Windblade sounds awkward... Why not WINGBLADE?

Might be due to that name already existing, and they wanted a freshly made new name.

Plus, her attacks are all wind-based, using her sword in conjunction with the wind to strike with.

Nemesis Maximo wrote:

JazZeke wrote:I don't see parents being too keen to buy their children a toy that looks like a robot geisha.

You really think parents are gonna care about that? They'll probably just ask their kid/s what they want, and when they say "The transformer Windblade figure!", the parents will see a female robot with swords that turns into a jet.

If the package art is prominently displayed, then I have no doubt parents will notice it. The design ain't subtle.

JazZeke wrote:

Nemesis Maximo wrote:

JazZeke wrote:I don't see parents being too keen to buy their children a toy that looks like a robot geisha.

You really think parents are gonna care about that? They'll probably just ask their kid/s what they want, and when they say "The transformer Windblade figure!", the parents will see a female robot with swords that turns into a jet.

If the package art is prominently displayed, then I have no doubt parents will notice it. The design ain't subtle.

You are assuming that a normal average person knows what a geisha is -also it looks more like a kabuki mask to me -second its not nessarely what it will look like in the end

also a female transformer is such a rare item that people will jump at it first chance be they collectors or other wise -female bots i have noticed always sell fairly well -usually their the harder ones to find -at least in my view the thing im wondering is how her story will be told -will she get a comic like drift -she might even be from the circle of light and we see something there

also were do these votes happen i haven't seen it but then again im working a lot so i don't have the spare time

Hate it. Cybertronians shouldn't be Samurai. It's an earth thing. Especially with all the face paint.
Black and red colour scheme........boring as hell.
Jet mode......boring as hell.
Fem bot.....everybody loves Fembots.

Seriously, this thing sucks. As far as i'm concerned anyways.

It's like a bad Japanese Koi fish tattoo that everybody seems to be getting these days and jumped on the bandwagon over in place of the poopy tribal tatttos deuchebags sported in the 90's.

Garbage.

MGrotusque wrote:Hate it. Cybertronians shouldn't be Samurai. It's an earth thing. Especially with all the face paint.
Black and red colour scheme........boring as hell.
Jet mode......boring as hell.
Fem bot.....everybody loves Fembots.

Seriously, this thing sucks. As far as i'm concerned anyways.

It's like a bad Japanese Koi fish tattoo that everybody seems to have these days that replaced poopy tribal tatttos in the 90's.

Garbage.

I can't quite tell if you like this or not

I like it myself. Didn't vote for that alt mode of colour scheme, but like where they are going with it

Though I was hoping space shuttle would win (been on a weird space kick) I'm overall pleased with what came about from the fan poll. Though I really have issues with how the head looks in the colored promo picture. The sketches they showed during the panel looked a lot better, so I hope when it gets made into a toy her head takes more design cues from the black and white sketches and not the colored picture.

Convotron wrote:It's interesting that there is such a thing as an issue with female looking robots. So basically, those who are against fembots/female robots are against a Transformer toy having a bust or other feminine features.

So what is desired by some is a non-feminine fembot...is this any better?



It's cherry picking points of an argument if we don't look at the entire picture.

It's okay for "male" robots to exist and they do because in all branches of fiction from G1 we have most Transformers characters referred to with he/him. Additionally, fembots are referred to with she/her.

It's okay to have male proportions in the majority of robots(broad shoulders, torsos tapering down to the waist), it's okay to have male facial features(square jaw, masculine facial structure).

It's okay to have male voice actors voice apparently male robots/bio-mechanical organisms.

BUT...

It's not okay to have a fembot with feminine features(breasts/a bust).

So it's a boy's club with a big "NO GIRLS ALLOWED" sign hung up at the entrance.

Adult males collecting toys made for children are against a girl toy robot. Welcome to 2013.

As much as I think you're just trying to be provocative, I believe you're misinterpreting the point. Noideaforaname made a good statement by showing the range of different shapes and sizes that 'male' characters have come in, such as the ROTF Constructicons.

(And the fandom hated those too, by the way.)

As I said earlier, it's a good thing that fans wanted a female character, and that Hasbro gave us a female character. It's the fact that the only way to make it clearly so, was to make it conform to some gender stereotypes and attributes. And what's the major perceived difference between men and women? Breasts, and a more slender figure. And how do they get posed? Like this:




And to show how a slender figure makes fans scream 'he looks like a girl!', as if that were a bad thing, here's Prime Starscream, in the same pose.




The issue is not with female-looking robots. The issue is with the fact that there seems to be only one way in which we can mark female-looking robots.


But to respond to your Hulk provocation:

Va'al wrote:

Personally, I find these confusing. Why are they "female" robots? Because they have female voice chips?

Sexist accusations aside, it's not unreasonable to expect a "female" to exhibit "female" attributes (such as the hand on hip pose, which FEW men ever take).

I'm on board with different body types for these TF's, but surely the answer is not repainting a male purple and saying he's now a girl. The F- is that? I don't really need to give Hasbro ideas on how to properly represent women, do I?

To put it in another way, I like to think that the ultimate goal of any self-respecting woman is NOT to look and act like a male; I'd like to imagine TF's share that opinion.

Metrosuplex wrote:Personally, I find these confusing. Why are they "female" robots? Because they have female voice chips?

No, only because the character was said to be so. Why is that difficult to accept?

Sexist accusations aside, it's not unreasonable to expect a "female" to exhibit "female" attributes (such as the hand on hip pose, which FEW men ever take).

I'm on board with different body types for these TF's, but surely the answer is not repainting a male purple and saying he's now a girl. The F- is that? I don't really need to give Hasbro ideas on how to properly represent women, do I? The ultimate goal of any feminist is NOT to look like a male; I'm going to say TF's share that opinion.

Er.. no. The ultimate goal of feminism is to achieve full and complete equality between men and women (and everything in between/beyond).

Can you define female attributes in an objective way? Sure, we can quote biology, but we're talking on a societal level right now, as it's perceived gender we're dealing with. There are no inherent behaviours, attributes, qualities, preferences that belong to a particular gender, anywhere on the spectrum.

That's why it's unreasonable!

I'm looking forward to the botcon, Face of the Nijika repaint.

_Anshin_ wrote:

GuyIncognito wrote:A new female bot: good.

Hasbro still thinking that female bots need breasts: bad.

Actually I have been reading about the "need for breasts" on the bots/toys. Without them they would not be distinguishable from the "male" bots. The big fear is that cross/transgender identification with toys at a young age. By sexualizing (females have breasts) parents don't have to explain this and there won't be a picket from certain groups against the toy manufacture for the release of a cross/transgender toy.

So to avoid litigations / psychological identification and confusion / etc. it is a good thing.

WTF?!
Most human females have breasts so when you design a robot that's supposed to be identified as female you make her look female, and breasts are part of that. Sure some variety would be nice, but we can only start asking for that once female TFs have become common and accepted.
And transgendered people generally try their best to make their body look as close as possible to the gender they feel they are in order to feel comfortable with it. So that makes no sense. Otherwise Hasbro would have already received trouble for BW Blackaracknia, BW Airrazor, BM Strika, and most prominently Prime Starscream.

Mindmaster wrote:Awesome, it's a female! Now we have our second female jet in Transformers fiction (the first being Slipstream)!

You know what her face kinda reminds me of?

Jup, totally the first thing I thought of the moment I saw this.


Kinda cool, actually, but a G1 Arcee would have been nice too, it's about time that she gets an official toy thing without it turning into cheesecake.

Dead Metal wrote:Most human females have breasts so when you design a robot that's supposed to be identified as female you make her look female, and breasts are part of that.

Breasts aren't what makes a woman a woman, though. Muscles don't make a man a man. Or what, would you look at a transformer and think "gee, I wish it had breasts"?

Well, that'd be fair enough, I guess, some people just dig robots.

It isn't necessary for a good robot design, however, and especially not something that is meant to be armoured instead of perfectly copying humans.

Dead Metal wrote:Most human females have breasts so when you design a robot that's supposed to be identified as female you make her look female, and breasts are part of that. Sure some variety would be nice, but we can only start asking for that once female TFs have become common and accepted.

Well said.

Va'al wrote:As much as I think you're just trying to be provocative, I believe you're misinterpreting the point. Noideaforaname made a good statement by showing the range of different shapes and sizes that 'male' characters have come in, such as the ROTF Constructicons.

(And the fandom hated those too, by the way.)

As I said earlier, it's a good thing that fans wanted a female character, and that Hasbro gave us a female character. It's the fact that the only way to make it clearly so, was to make it conform to some gender stereotypes and attributes. And what's the major perceived difference between men and women? Breasts, and a more slender figure. And how do they get posed? Like this:




And to show how a slender figure makes fans scream 'he looks like a girl!', as if that were a bad thing, here's Prime Starscream, in the same pose.




The issue is not with female-looking robots. The issue is with the fact that there seems to be only one way in which we can mark female-looking robots.


But to respond to your Hulk provocation:

Deadmetal summed up the point I was trying to make in my verbose (and provocative)way. But I'll take time to respond.

If my goal was to simply be provocative, there are easier ways to do it than to take the time to illustrate the imbalance in accepted gender features(masculine) in toys like Tranformers.

As far as the Hulk "provocation", it is simply an example of an obviously non-feminine form. It's extreme but so is Strika. How is the Hulk picture fundamentally different than the Botcon Strika using the Generations Warpath body?

Noideaforaname does have a great point, the question of since there is a nice amount of non conventional humanoid body types in "male" Transformers robots, why can't we have the same in "female" Transformers robots. I agree with that but I also think that it would happen more if the population of female robot Transformers was more significant.

What proportion of the "male" Transformers population have unconventional body types? The number of "male" Transformers characters/toys with unconventional body types outnumbers the number of "female" Transformers characters/toys. We'd see more variety in body types if we had a more female Transformers toys.

I also agree with you that it's a good thing, a great thing as far as I'm concerned, that a female character was created by fan vote and that Hasbro would put effort into bringing it to the mainline market.

The people who pose toys in your example of Prime Arcee and Starscream are the same people who cry foul at fembots existing. The ones who view with any negativity the way that Starscream can be seen as feminine...these are the kind of people who are the problem. It's the "ewww girls" reaction that can be understood if coming from a child, not adults.

Incidentally, Prime Starscream is an exception to the largely masculine proportions standard in Transformers. Where is the clamouring for less "male" looking masculine Transformers? Why do male transformers have to have masculine features? Why do we need gender at all in these fictional characters and their toy representations?

The answer is that it reads quickly and easily on a visual level, making for efficient identification experience.

That's visual design 101.

The fact of the matter is Transformers character designs are largely based on human inspiration for humanoid bot modes. The fact of the matter is that majority of character designs use overt male physical proportions/traits for "male" characters.

To even ask why a feminine robot has to have feminine traits is odd to me because it's not a difficult question to answer.

Looking at the finalized character design for Windblade, the most feminine aspect of the figure are the hips. The bust is not nearly as prominent, it's actually even more slight than what is seen on Prime Arcee's character model.

If you take away the shoulder armour of Windblade, she'd have pear shaped proportions. With the shoulder armour, she displays the inverted triangle silhouette associated with the ideal male proportions(shoulders broader than the waist).

So basically, Windblade's design is slim shoulders(beneath large shoulder armour), slight bust, wide hips. Feminine? Yes. I don't see it as a Barbie doll or an idealized female form held by modern popular culture, though.

Frankly, I think that a fembot with a pear shaped appearance is a move forward for the brand and the toy industry as a whole.

Yes and no.

I can see Dead Metal and your point about more variety once we have a bigger cast to play with. But I also disagree with it.

I believe I could sum up my point by saying that if we have to ascribe gender to Transformers characters, why not just assign it randomly? Megatron could be female, for all we know.

(The IDW dealing with gendering and Arcee, especially the Spotlight, is not a good way to discuss the issue, in case anyone feels like bringing it in to the conversation.)

And again, gender is not reproduction-bound. Transformers don't copulate in the human sense, fine, that doesn't mean they can't indentify with the gender spectrum.


My issue is with the associated gender qualities as you described above.

Incidentally, Prime Starscream is an exception to the largely masculine proportions standard in Transformers. Where is the clamouring for less "male" looking masculine Transformers? Why do male transformers have to have masculine features? Why do we need gender at all in these fictional characters and their toy representations?

The answer is that it reads quickly and easily on a visual level, making for efficient identification experience.

That's visual design 101.

The fact of the matter is Transformers character designs are largely based on human inspiration for humanoid bot modes. The fact of the matter is that majority of character designs use overt male physical proportions/traits for "male" characters.

To even ask why a feminine robot has to have feminine traits is odd to me because it's not a difficult question to answer.

It's a question of normative identification, if anything, and just an easy wait out of a discussion about the values we confer to gender representation.


As for Hulk/Strika: I was agreeing with you, but you have now raised a point I want to respond to - The Hulk is still following conventional norms of male power representation. Strika is not.


But we seem to agree on the fact that Windblade is an inkling of a step forward for Hasbro, Transformers, fans and parts of society. Good.

EDIT: A final point, not from me, but with which I entirely agree.

Sprite wrote:I just don't see why some Transformers can't be "female" the way the others are "male". They are technically genderless after all and, Arcee aside, whatever passes for gender comes down to the "pronoun of choice" thing (which is pretty arbitrary). We've got like a zillion Nails who've drifted all over the galaxy for four million years - it's not unthinkable that some of them has adapted the feminine gender as the social norm, is it? And there doesn't need to be made a fuss about it. Face it, any focus on an explanation for gender otherwise is bound to be offensive in some way or other.

I think it's silly to say that we can have women who aren't stereotyped once we've had a sufficient amount of women who are stereotyped.

Handels-Messerschmitt wrote:I think it's silly to say that we can have women who aren't stereotyped once we've had a sufficient amount of women who are stereotyped.

Yes, thank you.

A much shorter way of putting it.

There isn't even inherently a problem with a transformer having "breasts", it's the idea that they must have them to be women that is the issue. There shouldn't be any need to justify a Wingblade or whoever who is no more stacked than Optimus.

My main problem with the Arcee above is the high heels. You can't even explain that with mimicking common physiology.

That, and the enormous pink wing nipples.

Dead Metal wrote:

_Anshin_ wrote:

GuyIncognito wrote:A new female bot: good.

Hasbro still thinking that female bots need breasts: bad.

Actually I have been reading about the "need for breasts" on the bots/toys. Without them they would not be distinguishable from the "male" bots. The big fear is that cross/transgender identification with toys at a young age. By sexualizing (females have breasts) parents don't have to explain this and there won't be a picket from certain groups against the toy manufacture for the release of a cross/transgender toy.

So to avoid litigations / psychological identification and confusion / etc. it is a good thing.

WTF?!
Most human females have breasts so when you design a robot that's supposed to be identified as female you make her look female, and breasts are part of that. Sure some variety would be nice, but we can only start asking for that once female TFs have become common and accepted.
And transgendered people generally try their best to make their body look as close as possible to the gender they feel they are in order to feel comfortable with it. So that makes no sense. Otherwise Hasbro would have already received trouble for BW Blackaracknia, BW Airrazor, BM Strika, and most prominently Prime Starscream.

Again GuyIncognito was making a slight point about not liking fembots looking ... well female by having breasts. I was simply stating that after complaints about vibrating toys, body issues with other toys and such, legal has actually started trying to mitigate things. I know it seems wierd but there are actual studies for things. I was not able to find the magazine write up by PsycTody but I did find
[url]This one[/url].

Now this does not discuss the parental fears but association and relations between identification and the toys themselves. The article goes on to tell people reading (especially parents) that the sex of the toy will not influence something that is biologicially driven. I will continue looking for the article for those of you that are interested in it.

*Note: I removed the link due to Va'al's issues with the article.

I am uncomfortable with that article for a number of reasons, but I'll get back to you on it.

So, they checked what kinds of toys babies aged 3-8 months showed a preference for. Did they control in any way what kind of toys they had been given previously? I mean, if adults give a baby one kind of toy then it's no surprise that they'll show a preference for that kind.

Handels-Messerschmitt wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:Most human females have breasts so when you design a robot that's supposed to be identified as female you make her look female, and breasts are part of that.

Breasts aren't what makes a woman a woman, though. Muscles don't make a man a man. Or what, would you look at a transformer and think "gee, I wish it had breasts"?

Well, that'd be fair enough, I guess, some people just dig robots.

It isn't necessary for a good robot design, however, and especially not something that is meant to be armoured instead of perfectly copying humans.

I never said that breasts are what make a woman a woman, it's more complicated than that. Re-read my post before you decide to put words in my mouth:

Dead Metal wrote:Most human females have breasts so when you design a robot that's supposed to be identified as female you make her look female, and breasts are part of that.

Now tell me where I state that it's breasts that make a woman a woman.

Here's the thing, the whole reason Transformers have had the success they've had is that they are different from all other robots before them. They are the most human robots there are, they act human, they sound human, they express human emotions, they look kinda human (again, most of them), all that makes them seem human to the point that we accept them as actual characters and can relate to them. Visual design is a big part of that, "male" TFs are usually designed to look male ie: large broad shoulders, facial structure, facial hair.
The only reason we have such a large variety of different male TF designs, as in body types is that there is such a large body of male TFs since they're the norm. Female TFs are still very "alien", because apparently boys aren't interested in "girl robots", so we have so very few female TFs. And to bring the point across, they are designed to look female, and women have breasts, be they flat or large, they have breasts. I don't understand why that's supposed to be bad.
Take a look at BM Strika, the only reason she got to look so unique and not stereotypically female is because she was part of the Beast era, in which female TFs weren't so "alien" and "weird", but a well established fact. After that we didn't see female TF characters till Energon, such a long time that Arcee was once again a stereotypical design, to bring the point across that she was female.

Handels-Messerschmitt wrote:I think it's silly to say that we can have women who aren't stereotyped once we've had a sufficient amount of women who are stereotyped.

Women with breasts isn't a stereotype, it's a fact of life.

I don't even see the problem here, it's not like they're huge or look like naked breasts, it's an edge on the chest-plate, which makes it look more like she's wearing armor you know, like Samus Aran.

Is that offensive because it's armor with breasts underneath?

I don't see what's wrong with designing female TFs, to look female so that they can be recognized and identified as such.


I'm also not saying that we shouldn't have variety in female TF body design, all I'm saying is that we need to give it time, like back with Beast Wars, the females looked like sex icons and then we got Strika.

For now, could we see the positive in this? Hasbro made a brand new character, a female character, and she's getting a toy. Hasbro has thankfully already gotten ridd of pink and oversexed designs and is moving in the right direction.

Dead Metal wrote:For now, could we see the positive in this? Hasbro made a brand new character, a female character, and she's getting a toy. Hasbro has thankfully already gotten ridd of pink and oversexed designs and is moving in the right direction.

Yes, that was my point a while back too (though I also think that the oversexed part will inevitably happen once fans get the figure).

I think it comes down to this, men are more angular while women have softer lines.

Btw men have breasts as well

Va'al wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:For now, could we see the positive in this? Hasbro made a brand new character, a female character, and she's getting a toy. Hasbro has thankfully already gotten ridd of pink and oversexed designs and is moving in the right direction.

Yes, that was my point a while back too (though I also think that the oversexed part will inevitably happen once fans get the figure).

It will, but nobody can blame Hasbro for it, maybe people like Handels-Messershmitt, but that's beside the point.
I mean remember the first gallery that was posted of First Edition Prime Arcee? Started out OK, but by picture two it just devolved into cheesecake and soft-core porn.